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- [00:00]
Brett
It's 2025 and a new year means brand new opportunities. And for a lot of you out there, I know you've been thinking about one thing over the holidays and that is starting your own business. But you have so many questions like how do I get started? How do I come up with a brand? How do I even sell stuff to people? And what am I even going to sell now? Take a deep breath. Shopify has got you. Shopify makes it simple to create your brand open for business and get your first sale attend. And you can get your store up and running easily with thousands of customizable templates. You don't have to be a coding nerd or a design geek to get this done. All you need to do is drag and drop. Shopify also helps with the details like shipping taxes and payments from one single dashboard so you can focus on the important stuff like growing your business. Established in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com truecrime or go to shopify.com truecrime to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com truecrime Omaha Steaks makes it easy.
- [01:05]
To keep great food on hand so dinner time is simple and convenient. And right now you can get 12 free burgers and free shipping for life when you shop@omahasteaks.com yourplan@omaha steaks, you're in control. Order once or set up recurring shipments for more savings, more convenience and inflation proof pricing. Visit omahasteaks.com yourplan to get started today and get 12 free burgers and free shipping for life. Minimum purchase may apply see site for details. I'm Brett.
- [01:42]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [01:43]
Brett
And we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, a family goes on a road trip and then loses their ever loving minds. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my Wandering co host Alice Wanderlust.
- [02:46]
Alice
Wandering. What a good descriptor. Brett, I am so proud of you. You can't help but, you know, be drawn into my puns. So I'm proud of you.
- [02:54]
Brett
That's true. You've had an effect on me.
- [02:56]
Alice
Yeah, about time. It's been five years of doing the podcast. It only took five years, guys. Yeah, talk about wandering. Am I right? This is one of the strangest stories I've ever heard. And I kept waiting for, you know like when you watch a kind of a mysterious movie and you wait for either the punchline or the answer. And it. There's just like a dot, dot, dot, and I just like scream at the screen. That's this case. That is this case.
- [03:24]
Brett
Spoiler alert.
- [03:24]
Alice
Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's not a spoiler alert because you guys are gonna want to stay around for the dot, do dot. Because it is a mind boggler, shall we say?
- [03:33]
Brett
You know, I gotta say, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast, Heads, Carolina, Tails, California. That song. I have just deep inside of me, this desire to just start driving. Like, I'll drive by the Greyhound bus station every now and then. I'm just like, I wonder if I just went in there and said, you know, give me a ticket to a random place and just got on the bus and went. This was more attractive before I had kids. But even now, I mean, even, you know, sometimes. Sometimes it's more attractive now. But just this desire to just strike off and into the distance, just to see what comes and leave everything behind. I think everybody has that desire deep down inside of them somewhere.
- [04:15]
Alice
I think you're right. They do have that desire. But your little caveat there. You would like to do that when you didn't have kids. What if you threw your kids in the mix and brought them along? That would be crazy, would it not? But is that maybe what we're going to talk about today?
- [04:31]
Brett
And we are returning to the great country of Australia. It's been a while since we've done Australian case. I think we've only done one, but I could be wrong about that. So looking forward to mispronouncing all the Australian names, which drives the Australians crazy. I'm sorry, but Melbourne sounds so much better than Melbourne. Melbourne. It's like you're not finishing the word. There's so many letters.
- [04:56]
Alice
I didn't know that.
- [04:57]
Brett
Melbourne.
- [04:57]
Alice
Okay, Melbourne. I do have a little challenge. Shall I say Australians get us to your continent. Please do. Because I asked my kids.
- [05:06]
Brett
And you can teach us all the words.
- [05:08]
Alice
Exactly. You can teach us all the words. We'll. We'll call it a grammatical. Linguistic exchange. But my kids, I was like, where in the world would you like to go? You could go anywhere in the world. We just, like, play these questions, you know, conversation starters at dinner. And you know what they said unequivocally? Australia. And I was like, oh, wow. You didn't have to think about that. So get us there and we will come with a lot of little munchkins.
- [05:32]
Brett
We will, we will. We'll bring so many children. But this is a case that is famous in Australia. It's famous. I remember when it happened, so it certainly made news over here. But it's one. I think you guys are going to enjoy it. It's the story of the Trump family. This is the disappearance. You know, we love doing these disappearances of entire families because it's just bizarre that it can happen. But this one has has a twist on it that makes it even stranger from the outside looking in. The Trump family were a successful close knit bunch, Mark and Jacoba Trump that had built a successful earth moving company and a red currant farm which I hear are a big deal in Asia. We don't really have red currants here. I feel like we have black or currants depending on how you pronounce it for current. But that could be wrong. Are you a red currant fan?
- [06:27]
Alice
I think they're like medicinal properties in the Asian culture. So my mom brings them by the like bagfuls when she visits me here.
- [06:34]
Brett
They make great jam.
- [06:36]
Alice
I was going to say I only eat them when she's here.
- [06:38]
Brett
Yeah. Well, look, they had a whole farm of them and they lived in a farm and community very connected to the earth. They were very successful and in fact they had three children, three adult children. Rihanna, 29, Mitchell, 25 and Ella, 22, who still lived on the farm and worked alongside their parents. And they worked seven days a week at this farm. They were very successful, beautiful home. They had horses, I believe it was Rihanna was into jumping, like hunter jumping. So they had like a whole jumping course. They had a bunch of horses. Very successful people. The kids, even though they're working on the farm, they also had these side businesses that they're doing. So just basically seems like they have this perfect life. But then in 2016, Mark and Jacoba, I believe Kobe was her nickname, began to demonstrate some paranoid behavior. And they became convinced that someone was after them, someone was stalking them. They wanted to steal all their money, maybe even kill them. And they were terrified. And this behavior peaked in August 2016 when the family abruptly left on a cash only, tech free road trip. Now this road trip which began at their home in Sylvan and ended in a place that I'm certainly going to mispronounce, Wangaratta. And then I think Wangaratta sounds, sounds very Australian, but the Australians can correct me on that. It spanned five days and nearly a thousand miles. Along the way the family would split up. Different people leaving at different times. All of them doing things that seem to defy since and then they eventually reappeared one by one. And even now, nearly nine years later, the general public is no closer to understanding what exactly happened to the Tromp family than they were when this occurred. This is a wild ride, and I'm looking forward to talking it through with you guys and trying to figure out what exactly was going on with his family.
- [08:44]
Alice
So obviously the entire story is in the timeline, as, I mean, this is a road trip of confusion, if you could name it that. And the most confusing part, if you lived through this time, because it wasn't that long ago, this was less than 10 years ago, nine years ago. Each day brought more and more confusion. So as you walk through the timeline with us, walk through this immense confusion with us. And like Brett said, I don't know if we'll have answers at the end of this, but this is so bizarre, especially when you're talking about five adults here, three adult children. You know, the youngest is 22, so, so truly not a teenager who are successful, happy, and they leave on this trip. So let's take us back to August 29, 2016. The Trump family. Remember, they work on a farm seven days a week. Why do they do that? Not because they're workaholics, but because that's what a farm requires. Those of you who either work on a farm know people who own farms, know that whether it's animals or plants, in this case, it's a red currant farm. There are things to do every single hour of every single day, and you typically can't even take vacation. That's one of the hard things about being a farmer. And so for all of them to leave at once is notable in itself. And that's what they did. On August 29, 2016. They left their home in Sylvan Victoria, in Ella, one of the daughters silver pugio suv. And they left not with the things you normally would leave home with. They didn't take their phones. They didn't take their passports. They didn't take credit cards. They quite literally had their bodies and got in a car and left. Now, the son, Mitchell, was the only one in the group with a cell phone. But just 19 miles into the drive, his parents made him throw his phone out the window near Warburton. And so they were afraid that they would be able to be tracked by via the phone, which is why they had Mitchell throw his phone out. So not only did they not bring their phones, but no one in the car can have phones. Turning it on airplane mode wasn't enough. We had to get rid of that entire phone lest they be tracked.
- [10:47]
Brett
And if this feels like it starts abruptly, it's because it does. There's no real run up to this. If you look at the stories, look at the interviews, there's just a sort of vague notion that around this time the parents became very paranoid, like we said. But there's no events, so there's no like three days before there was a strange car in the driveway or someone broke into the house. It's literally just these people decide to do this. And Mitchell is the only person in this entire story who is just completely sane. And he's like, I don't know about this guys, this seems really strange. But he was concerned about the rest of his family. And so he would later say, I just felt like I needed to go with them and see where they were going because they wouldn't tell me where they were going. But he wasn't going to leave his cell phone. He was taking his cell phone with him. It's a little unclear how the parents discovered that he had it, but when they found it, they lost their minds. And so literally, his dad takes his phone and throws it out the window. Which is just. If Mitchell had any doubts that something had broken in the family, it was confirmed for him at that point.
- [11:52]
Alice
And I'll admit I've tried to put myself in Mitchell's shoes. If everyone in my family got in the car and just started leaving, I would probably jump in the car too. I don't wanna be left behind. I don't know what's going on, but I'm probably gonna go as well. Well, this road trip, like most road trips, you know, people get fed up with it just hours into the road trip. So by 7am the next day, Mitchell's like, I've had enough of this. You threw my phone out hours ago. I don't know what's happening. So he leaves the family in bathurst, approximately just 500 miles from home. So it seems like they've just been driving nonstop to get 500 miles away. And then he's like, you know what? Open the car. Leaving now, the rest of the family, the other four, mom, dad, two sisters, continue in the car. And a short while later, the rest of the family arrived at Jonalon Caves, a popular tourist spot in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There, the remaining Tromp siblings, the two sisters, actually, they also decide we're done with this trip. And so they leave the parents at that point. So really quick note. Three of the five members of this family abandoned this trip by the second Day.
- [12:58]
Brett
But let's be clear here. Mitchell. Mitchell jumps on a train and heads back home, right? The sisters abandon this trip, but they are not in their right minds because what do they do when they decide to abandon this trip? They steal a car. So they just steal a car. They then drive the car to a nearby town called Goulburn and they do whatever. What do you do when you steal a car? What's the first thing you do? You call the police. So they actually, you know, they drive their stolen car, I guess, to a payphone and they call the police and say, hey, our parents are missing. Now at this point, there's some sort of further falling out with the girls because they decide to part ways. At this point, they're at a gas station, probably wherever they made the call, and they decide they're going to go their separate ways.
- [13:50]
Alice
This is all incredibly puzzling because it's not like we're talking about two young women who have like a history of carjacking. So I don't actually personally know how to steal a car, but they, pretty, with some alacrity, find a car, just take, steal, quite literally, steal. It's not theirs. They had no permission to take it, and they take it. And what's interesting is what they say to the police, right? Not my parents are acting weird or, hey, I saw them drive in this car headed to this destination. And I'm worried about them because they're. They're close to their family, they're close to their parents, they live with their parents. But to just say that they're missing is really interesting because it then draws into question, like, what does it mean to be missing? This is not meant to be an existential question, but you typically think of reporting someone missing if, say, I arrive home and my husband was supposed to be home and his car's gone and his wallet's gone and he's nowhere to be found and none of his friends know where he is. But this isn't the case. They left the parents and now they're reporting them missing.
- [14:50]
Brett
And I think this goes to what is a disturbed mental state for these two girls, these two women as well. And I do want to note, you know, we're talking about Australia. Those of us who are not in Australia, we sort of think of Australia as Sydney and I guess Melbourne and then the Outback, right? So in the average American's minds, there are a couple of cities in Australia and then just vast desert wilderness that goes on to the sea. Right? Well, nothing we're talking about happens in the outback. This is all in the. To whatever extent Australia is a built up country, this is all in it. So they're not like out in the middle of nowhere. They're near towns and cities the whole time. But you have this situation where the two girls are gonna split up. But it's number one, why are they splitting up? Would be the first question. Number two, they're just abandoning each other. If you think about it, they're in the middle of nowhere. They don't know where they are. Ella takes the car. So it's not even like they split up, ditch the car, and both take a bus or something like that. Ella takes the car and just leaves her sister Rihanna in this unfamiliar town with no cell phone, no credit cards, nothing. She just leaves her there and starts driving. And apparently, I think Ella is the one with horses. Apparently she was concerned about her horses, so she wants to go feed her horses. Now, who knows what she planned on doing after that, but she takes off in the car. Rihanna now left behind, I guess, does what you do in this situation. You know, she just talked to the police. It seems like the obvious thing to do would be to call the police and say, oh, by the way, when I reported my parents missing, they also abandoned me. So I'm in the middle of nowhere. Help me. She doesn't do that. She's been very successful in breaking into a car. So she breaks into another car. She breaks into a utility van, and she climbs into the back of the utility van in this town, closes the door. She doesn't steal the car. She just breaks into the back of it.
- [16:48]
Alice
She just rests. She just rests?
- [16:50]
Brett
Yeah, she's just laying in the back. The owner, he comes along, he gets in his utility van, fires her up, starts driving. All of a sudden, he starts feeling kicks to his seat during the drive, which just imagine, especially in Australia, because who knows what sort of kangaroos back fatal. Yeah. Poisonous slash vicious animal could be in the back of your car. But he looks back and he sees Rihanna in the back of his vehicle. And what he described is a catatonic state. He. He tried to talk to her. She could barely talk at all. And when she did talk, she said she did not know her name, didn't know where she was, didn't know how she ended up in the van. That is her mind's mindset at this time.
- [17:35]
Alice
And so this is really interesting. This is about an hour after Ella leaves her. So either she becomes into this catatonic state within the hour of Ella leaving her, or she was like this with Ella. And yet being in this clearly helpless state, her sister just leaves her as opposed to keep her in the same car to go back to the home that they both live in. I mean, nothing is adding up. There's just question mark after question mark that's happening right now.
- [18:01]
Brett
And remember, Rihanna is the oldest of the kids. She's 29. So you know, Ella's 22. And she's like, sorry, I got to go get my horses. And so she does, she leaves her and who knows what her mental state was. So the driver who would say to the press that he had quite a shock when he saw her in the back of the car, called the police. The police show up and they take her to Goulburn Hospital where she is placed under psychiatric care because at this point nobody even knows who she is.
- [18:31]
Alice
And so remember Ella, Ella took the car because she's worried about her horses and she basically does nothing but drive like 500 miles because she later that evening arrives back at the family farm and she is the first of the Trump family members to get home. So. So they've been gone for really just about a day at this point. But when she gets there, she discovers that she's not the only one there because the police were already at the family farm. The police found the home unlocked and in utter disarray. They saw years worth of farm's financial records all kind of just littered throughout the home, indicating that someone had actually gone through these records relatively recently. They also found the family's passports, credit cards and cell phones other than Mitchell's, because we know Mitchell took his phone with him. And so to the investigators, it looked more like the Tromps had fled rather than left for a fun family vacation later. Maybe not surprisingly, you know, Ella, like, shows up in the stolen car where police are already at looking at what looks to be some sort of a break in or disturbance at least. She is charged with car theft related to, of course, the stolen vehicle that she drove all the way back home in. Now, Rihanna was also part of that carjacking, but she was not charged with car theft due to her mental state.
- [20:02]
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- [20:52]
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- [21:15]
Brett
And when I say in depth, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings and student to teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know all in1place.homes.com We've done your homework. So you know she's made it back home because she stole a car. It's now Aug. 31. Mitchell, who didn't steal a car, he arrives home on that day, which is a Wednesday. He had taken a series of trains, eventually called an overnight train home from Sydney. So he had a little bit more of an adventure getting home. He shows up, he tells the police what he knows. He tells the police where his parents were heading. Ella is able to tell them the last place they were, which is this Jinolin Caves. So the local police are informed that we have these two people. We don't know what's going on, but they're in your area and they're looking for Mark and Jacoba. But they did not find them. And in fact, the pair had already left and they had headed back over the Victorian border and into a town called Wangaratta. So in Wangaratta, they decide to do what everybody else in the family is doing. They're splitting up. Guess it'll make it harder to be tracked. So Jacoba goes her way and Mark goes his. Jacoba jumps on train, she's on public transportation and she's headed north towards a town called Yass. And later that night, a couple in Wangaratta will report a bizarre incident. So this is how they described it. They were tailgated by a man in a silver Peugeot station wagon, which is the vehicle that the Tromps had been driving when they pulled over. So they're, you know, they're being tailgated so they decide they're going to pull over. They pull over, the driver gets out of the car and runs towards them like a madman before stopping in the middle of the road. He then just stares at them for what I assume must have felt like for forever before turning around and just walking into a nearby park, marijuana park. And this is believed by everyone to be Mark Trump. The same evening there are a series of break ins in the area. It's never been confirmed, but many people attribute these break ins to Mark Trump. And that is the situation that we're in at this point. Jacoba is heading north. Mark. His behavior has now reached a level that is so bizarre no one can really classify it.
- [24:11]
Alice
So a lot is happening in a short amount of time and it's not going to stop. So on September 1st, the next day, the police are responding to the incident from the night before when they're notified in the early morning hours that the family's car had been located and it was reportedly operated by one man. This kind of tracks with it being Mark Trump since he was the one still in the car, whereas Jacoba had left by public transit. Now Mitchell, the brother and Ella Trump appeared on Channel 9 news. So they're the two who've made it home at this point and they go to the news stations and they start asking the public for assistance in locating their parents. Mitchell went on to say that his father was fearful someone was after him, which led the family's decision to flee. Now Mitchell was not able to provide further details other than that this paranoid behavior of his parents had been ramping up and it was not typical of his parents. Later that day, Jacoba, who'd been on that train, arrived at Yass District Hospital after a local found her just wandering around town. By the way, the Australians sound really nice. All of these people who seem to be having mental, you know, breakdowns are brought to the hospital, which is like very nice.
- [25:32]
Brett
If this happened in the United States, at least half these people would be dead.
- [25:36]
Alice
Truthfully, I mean, this is unfortunate because.
- [25:38]
Brett
We'Ve seen cases like this where people do things like this, right? I mean we, we've done several cases where mental illness is believed to play a part that end in murder or suspected murder or disappearances that everybody thinks is probably a murder. But in this case, and I mean they got plenty of murders in Australia, there's some great murder cases out of Australia But Alice is right. Everybody is going out of their way to help these people who are really exhibiting some mental illness. That might make a lot of people say, you know what, I don't know why this woman is wandering around town, but I am not going to get involved. That's not what happens here. They're helping out and getting these people where they need to be.
- [26:20]
Alice
Yeah. So now Jacoba gets to the hospital by the help of some local and she's examined and it was determined that her mental health wasn't of good standard. Such an elegant way of saying she's not doing well. Right. There's something clearly wrong. You can kind of tell with what's been happening, the pattern of behavior. Now, because she clearly needs some medical help. She's actually moved to the hospital in Goulburn so she can be with Rihanna. Remember Rihanna, the eldest daughter had been brought there in a catatonic state who also is getting psychiatric help. So the two of them are both at Goldburn Hospital and both are getting treated.
- [27:01]
Brett
And this is. It's fascinating because whatever's affecting them, and we're obviously gonna spend a good amount of time on theories on this case, but whatever's affecting them is not affecting them all equally. So Mitchell doesn't seem to have been affected at all. Ella is sometimes held out as not been really affected. But as we said, her behavior is very strange to me. And I think she definitely was under the influence of whatever this is and the whole stealing the car thing. But by the time she gets home, it seems like she is now out of it too, because her and Mitchell, they're talking to the media. There's no need for her to be hospitalized, no sign that she's under any kind of mental distress to the extent, as Alice said, she's going to be charged with stealing that car later on. But you know Rihanna, she's still in that hospital. Mom goes to the hospital, and whatever it is, she certainly doesn't break out of it as quickly as Ella did. She has to be moved to the same psychiatric hospital that her daughter is in as well.
- [28:04]
Alice
So far, this has not been a fun road trip whatsoever. You know, you left with five. One quickly abandons, then two more, including a stolen car. But now we've accounted for four of the family members. Two are back home pleading for help from the public to locate their parents. Two mom and older daughter are in the hospital. Where is Mark?
- [28:26]
Brett
And I would just note we find Jacoba on September 1st. What happened on September 2nd, nobody knows. It's a complete Black hole, right?
- [28:36]
Alice
Because all we know is there was that weird tailgating man charging incident break ins may or may not be related to him, and then silence for at least a day. Then on September 3, around 5:50pm Mark Tromp was located by police wandering down the road in Wangaratta, not far from the airport. And the police pick him up and they interview him for several hours. He's also assessed by a mental health officer. But roughly five hours later, he's not hospitalized like his wife and daughter were. Instead, he's released to the care of his brother, who happened to be a police officer. Officer. And maybe he was well enough mentally to be released, or maybe they felt okay releasing him to a fellow police member. But when he's driving away, he doesn't just keep his head down and go, no. Mark turns around and flips the middle finger birdie to the media who are waiting outside. And they've been following this for days, days. And that's his response.
- [29:45]
Brett
And I remember when this happened and the story was sort of developing. You had this entire family who was missing, and it seemed like this was going to be something terrible and tragic. And, you know, who knows exactly what's going on here? And. And then all of a sudden, you know, they. They find them, all, right? And so they find Mark, and it's like, what in the world's going on? And then you have this reaction, and it's just so strange. The next day, Mitchell and Ella, who are now sort of the face of the family because they're the only ones acting rationally, they appear in front of the media and they thank the police for finding their father. At the time, they do not provide any details on what happened or why it happened. And it's not clear, honestly, that they really have any idea what the answer is to those questions. September 5th. The next day, 2016. We have a statement from Mark Trump. So Mark Trump is going to make the following statement. In recent days, my family has been through a difficult period. Very true. Understatement of the century. We will soon be reunited together because, remember, we've got a couple people in the hospital, we got a couple people at the farm. It's unclear where he is or what's happening to him. I hope that we will begin to make sense of our ordeal and return to a normal life. I am conscious of the burden these events have placed upon our extended family, friends, and the community. Resources devoted to our aid without reservation. I apologize for the hurt and concern caused by these events. So, so far, lots of nice Words, no explanation. On behalf of our family, I express our deep gratitude to Victoria and New South Wales police as well as the health care professionals who have looked after our physical and mental well being. More than anything, my family and I need time to recover and receive appropriate assistance, including mental health services. To this end, we request the media organizations respect our request for privacy. At no point in this statement did he address why the family had fled or what exactly happened over the five or so days that they were missing.
- [31:56]
Alice
And obviously this, this may have been crafted by someone, you know, handling PR for the family. But just two, three days earlier, he had been wandering the streets and getting a mental health evaluation and three days later. This is a very professional and put together statement. Right. Maybe he didn't make it specifically, but this is not a situation where he say in a catatonic state in the hospital and they have to wait to figure out what he has to say. Whatever is happening, it's coming full circle or ending relatively quickly. This whole road trip started like a week ago. We're not talking about like a month long saga. So that's all the public gets for several months. That was in September of 2016. Now in March of 2017, Victoria Police actually withdraw the charges against Ella Trump for stealing a vehicle. They're allowed to do that, but remember, they never charged Rihanna because of her mental state. And now they actually withdraw the charges against Ella. Now, six months after the incident, the entire family. And this is probably the strangest thing of this whole story. We just followed a saga of a road trip for this family. But I think the next part is what is the most puzzling to me. Just six months later, not six years, not 10 years, six months later, the whole family, all five members of the Tromp family, what are they doing? They're back to work, they're on the farm, they're doing well. No further explanation on the strange road trip has ever been provided and they haven't skipped a beat. Mark Knight, he was the lead police investigator on this case and he stated that there was no evidence of any drug use in the family, any financial problems or debts, or evidence that they were part of any sort of cult. Basically all of the kind of wild conspiracy theories that you may think have contributed to this wild ride for an otherwise totally regular run of the mill family who had this like one week blip in their life and then went right back to their totally normal farm life. There was really no explanation. And that's it. That is the whole story.
- [34:14]
Brett
And I just want to dwell on this point for a minute, because something Alice said I think is really interesting. The fact that, I mean, this whole bizarre thing happens. It had to be terrifying, right? I mean, we've told the story and we've kind of been incredulous throughout, but just imagine what this must have been like for them. You know, they think they're fleeing for their lives. They, you know, Mitchell, how did they view him? Was he a traitor? You know, was he betraying them? Did they beg him to stay? Did they urge him to go?
- [34:48]
Alice
Like, Ella abandoned her sister. Like, how do you get over that?
- [34:53]
Brett
Ella abandons her sister, who's in a catatonic state, who ends up in a psychiatric ward, who has to climb into the back of a stranger's vehicle. Imagine how badly that could have gone, right? I mean, she literally gets in a van. She literally gets in a white van, panel van, and survives. Right? But, yeah, I mean, all this stuff, the terror, the recriminations, the blame, I mean, you would think, why did you get us into this? All this other stuff, it seems like it just all went away. You know, you would expect it's now been, like I said, can't believe it's been this long since 2016, but now it's been nine years and it just seems like nothing really changed. They just all sort of went about their lives. They just accepted whatever happened and moved on without question.
- [35:37]
Alice
And kind of so did the public. There were no repercussions. Like, they did steal someone's car. Like, if they stole my odyssey, what am I going to do without my odyssey? Like, how am I going to drive my kids around? Right? Like, this is. Yes, something happened. We don't know what, but. But it's as if we just turned back time and this week never happened. Except it did happen. And it was wild, such a wild ride. And the public was drawn into it.
- [36:05]
Brett
The owner of the hottesty, by the way, did tell the police they did not want to pursue it because they heard the story and they were like, don't want to move further with this.
- [36:14]
Alice
So all of this leads to what, what happened? What can explain this, like, truly, this story. There were so many off ramps that could have been devastating. I. I truly think at so many different points, Rihanna could have ended up somewhere very scary, at the hands of people who took advantage of someone vulnerable. Same with Mark Trump, same with Jacoba. But happily, they all are completely fine and able to continue with their life. But what accounted for this wild week of a road trip? Okay, let's talk about theories then. The first One, some of you may already be thinking it affects so many people, at least maybe three, four of the five family members. And you can't call this like a genetic thing because they're all adults. This isn't something that happened from my childhood. It truly is a sudden onset of whatever's happening is maybe they were poisoned by environmental toxins. So one potential explanation for the family's strange behavior all at once, by the way, is that they were poisoned by some sort of toxin in the environment on their farm that caused them all to have bizarre delusions. But obviously our bodies all metabolize toxins at different rates, so maybe it affected people at different rates. Maybe Mitchell didn't work with X, whatever part of the farm that had this particular toxin in high doses. And maybe Jacoba and Mark were there more often. So one website suggested ergot poisoning. So according to Mammamia.com, ergot poisoning is a type of poison that occurs when an individual consumes a specific type of fungus found on rye and crops such as wheat and barley. Ergot can cause confusion, hallucinations and other mental health related issues. This sounds very promising except for the fact that, well, the Tromps, they're not wheat farmers, they're berry farmers. So it's not exactly clear how ergot poisoning would come into play on this farm.
- [38:17]
Brett
And ergot poisoning is the. They started a new life somewhere and opened a bar and played music of any mystery that involves behavior. People always want to talk about ergot poisoning. So the Salem witch trials, there were people who thought, oh, it was urgot poisoning and that's why they were seeing witches and everything. You get this all the time. Think about it. Number one, you have to eat a ton of wheat or rye that has ergot poisoning for it to have any effect on you. These are multiple people as well. As Alice said, the chances that all of them would get this are unlikely. So I'm just going to go on a limb and say we can probably eliminate ergot poisoning, not for least of which because they didn't actually raise barley and wheat. But this is a popular theory that people put forward when they're trying to come up with some sort of, I'll say, rational explanation for what these people did.
- [39:04]
Alice
And it is attractive because there are so many things that could be happening on a farm, right? Not only your fertilizers, but you have crops and animals and external factors coming in. So I see why this is an attractive theory. There are also suggestions that There was something in the water at the farm that may have caused this bizarre behavior. But the lead investigator on the case said he had a cup of tea at the farm during the investigation, and he had no symptoms. I don't know if a cup of tea is enough. I don't know about you, but I drink a lot of water at home. If I'm at home all day, I work from home. And so a cup of tea does not equate all of my water consumption. Right. Which is presumably what the family's doing here.
- [39:44]
Brett
And like, heavy metal toxicity is something that builds up in the body over time. So if that were one of the problems, if there's like arsenic in the water or something, it would take some time for this to build up. Having a cup of tea is not going to do it. It would be more like over weeks. They were drinking this toxic water and it was building up in their bodies. The problem with this, though, is not the cup of tea excuse, is that these people were in the hospital when they were having these issues. They had blood drawn, it was tested. Unless it was something truly unusual, you would expect to see evidence of this poisoning in their blood.
- [40:20]
Alice
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure, especially if they're investigating this, obviously if you don't know what you're testing for, you may not have done the test, but the test they did draw didn't show any environmental toxins. So not completely ruled out, but at least the known toxins they didn't test positive for.
- [40:35]
Brett
Yeah, I don't know. The dingoes chased him off or something. So another theory is that there was no mental illness involved. That in reality, they weren't paranoid, they were right. They were fleeing something. People have suggested a possible mob connection, something along those lines. Organized crime. Somehow they had gotten into a situation where people really were after them. They did have this farm. You can imagine they needed to borrow money. They borrow it from the wrong person. All of a sudden, they're in debt to the mob and they're unable to pay. And there was a hit out on them, and they knew it, and so they fled. And they were smart enough to leave anything behind that could be tracked. But there are a few problems with this. Number one, nothing about their behavior is rational. So in order for it to be caused by something that makes sense, it needs to make sense. But even everything they did, other than leaving the phones behind, wandering around aimlessly, they have no plan. They're not going anywhere. They're splitting up. They're leaving their family behind to die. These are the things they're doing. And none of it fits with, we're running from a real threat.
- [41:46]
Alice
And when you run from a threat, you don't go right back to where you ran from, like within days. We're not talking years within days. They're right back to where they came from within the same day, really, within 24 hours, they're going back to the farm. And also they go back to living their regular life on the farm. They don't pick up and leave, they don't sell the farm and get out of Dodge.
- [42:07]
Brett
Nor have they been murdered.
- [42:08]
Alice
Nor have they been murdered. But also the public is watching now.
- [42:12]
Brett
So, yeah, maybe the mob was like, oh, we gotta wait a little while.
- [42:14]
Alice
Best witness protection ever is go to the media.
- [42:17]
Brett
So and the other problems with this, there's no actual evidence that they're in debt. They actually were very successful people with multiple different businesses bringing money in. They didn't have, you know, liens on their farm, multiple mortgages on anything. So even if you're saying, well, but if they have debt to the mob, how would you know about that debt? I mean, that's a secret debt, right? Well, the problem is they had lots of assets that they could have borrowed against with people who weren't in the mob, who weren't charging 20% interest in a year and didn't kill you if you don't pay it back. They could have gone to the bank and said, hey, you know, we have this massive property, we need some money, can you take out a mortgage on it? They didn't do that. They seem to be incredibly financially stable and have remained so after all these years, like Alice said. So this is like a theory, but it's a theory with no real evidence to support it. Guys, I'm really excited to talk to you tonight about Beam Dream. When we got started with this podcast and spending time researching these cases, I didn't think it would have an effect on my sleep. But after a while I realized it was keeping me up at night. We do these recordings and we have to record late at night because we work full time jobs. And when I get finished, I'm just not ready for bed, no matter how late it is. And I find myself staying up waiting till I can finally go to sleep. And that's why I'm so excited to share something that's made a real difference in my life. Beam's dream powder Beam healthy nighttime blend packed with science backed ingredients shown to improve sleep so you can wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day, whether that's going to work or solving a cold case. When I found Dream, everything changed. I started sleeping through the night without tossing and turning and I woke up energized, not groggy. It's been a game changer for me and it can be a game changer for you as well.
- [44:19]
Alice
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- [46:22]
Brett
We really liked the it was like a deconstructed egg roll. We liked it so much we've tried to recreate it ourselves, but let me tell you, we cannot do what cookunity can do, you guys have to try it. And it's so easy to find dishes that that align with your goals. And you can enjoy a variety that keeps every meal exciting and satisfying. You can browse the menu by protein, by chef, by cuisine, by dietary need. Whatever it is that you need, you can find with Cook Unity. It's easy, it's effortless. There's no cleanup, there's no meal planning. Meals are delivered fully cooked, just heat and as little as five minutes. And it's flexible, commitment, free subscriptions. You can skip deliveries, you can pause, you can cancel anytime. Though I'm gonna go on a limb and say you're not going to because these are restaurant quality meals. At the fraction of the price, subscriptions start as low as $11ameal. So crush your health goals with mouth watering chef crafted meals delivered straight to your door. Go to cookunity.com prosecutors or enter code prosecutors before checkout. For 50% off your first week, you gotta try this. That's 50% off your first week by using code prosecutors or going to cookunity.com prosecutors. You're going to love it. The third option, and I really should have made Alice do this, but I.
- [47:57]
Alice
Didn'T, is because of the pronunciation.
- [48:00]
Brett
Yeah. The third theory is what I'm going to call fali a deux. I think that's pretty close. And this is probably the most plausible theory, is that the family was suffering from some form of what has been called falihadu, which is the madness of two. This is sort of a colloquial term used to describe a very unusual mental illness. So unusual that ordinarily this would be something I'd put right there with ergot poisoning. I would say that's silly. Well, the chances of it being that are so low. This is one of those where Occam's razor produces a very unusual theory. This is like Sherlock Holmes in the whole. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. And this is what people think. It's called the madness of two. But it can be sort of a shared delusion that any group of incredibly tight knit people can share. And it's the presence of a similar delusion amongst them. And it's very difficult if you're a doctor looking at it, to even determine who it was, who was delusional first because they share it so intensely. There have been a few famous examples of this in true crime. There's another case we should do at some point and that happened in England, where you had a couple women who were very clearly suffering from this and did something along these lines. And the thing is, we have no idea why this happened. You know, we can't point to the triggering event and the fact that the family has remained so quiet and so just zipped up about this. You know, and I'm going to say this, and this. People who disagree with me on this, but. And this is gonna sound a little callous, too, but that's fine. I feel like the family actually owes some explanation of what happened. I mean, this became a nationwide story in Australia, a worldwide story. A lot of resources were expended for them. A lot of crimes were committed in their name and by them. I kind of feel like they owe the world an explanation. They have never given that explanation. So it's impossible to say exactly why this happened.
- [50:09]
Alice
I was gonna say, even if you don't, you don't have an explanation because maybe you don't know that itself is an explanation. Right. Like, I have no idea what I just did. Like, that. That itself could be a kind of a. I'm sorry. Right. But that has never happened. But I do wonder if that maybe part of it is they literally have no idea.
- [50:28]
Brett
And the thing is, while we. We can't tell you who it stems from, I can tell you he started it. It was Mark. I have no question in my mind about that, and I have more to say about that in a second. But you have Mark and Jacoba who are both demonstrating this paranoia. We know that they were paranoid in the weeks leading up to what happened. They're showing these signs of paranoia. They have this fear that someone's after them. And as this mental stress is building and they are getting more and more concerned and more and more frightening for their children, it seems as though their children were wrapped up in this. Well, now, the thing is, it is very difficult for any of us sitting around here to understand how this could happen, particularly how this could happen to the girls. And seriously, in the case of Rihanna, Ella was affected as well. But it's hard for us to imagine that. But you really have to put yourself in a totally different situation than you are in. And, you know, it's easy to imagine how this would happen with little kids, right? So, you know, if I go downstairs right now and wake my kids up and say, kids, we got to get out of here. There's a danger. You know, there's a dragon in the basement, and it's going to come up and eat us. If I said that to my kids, they would believe me and they would freak out and they would go wherever I said to go to get away from the dragon.
- [51:49]
Alice
I mean, this doesn't have to be even a dragon, right? Literally. A couple weeks ago, I think I told this story on another episode. We live in a place with a lot of tornadoes. And we had all of my family visiting from a place where there are not tornadoes. And they were sleeping at our house and the tornado was about to touch down. I was quite literally texting with Mrs. Brett about the tornado. Cause it was about to hit like our house directly. She was like, are you awake? Are you watching this? It's 2am and so we had 60 seconds to round up all the family members upstairs. Everyone dead asleep. And I woke up everybody and said, get down into the crawl space. And like they were like, what? But no one questioned it. And everyone just like ran in their underwear straight into like underneath the stairs. Along these lines. Because I spoke with a lot of authority and a lot of fear. I, I spoke with a lot of fear because truly we thought the tornado was about to strike our exact house. And it ended up striking very close to our house. But I got basically all these people to unquestionably follow me into a very dusty portion of our house with like 10 people in a tiny, tiny space. So you can see how this can happen. And they all followed me. Now I just happened to have like weather and the news on my side. And I wasn't the only one saying this. But from that perspective of waking up at 2am not knowing what's happening, but following blindly into a place we don't know, without our phones, without our, you know, nobody brought anything with them. That's actually exactly what happened.
- [53:12]
Brett
And I want to make some assumptions about this family that I don't know to be true, but I think fit with what we're saying here. I bet this is a very conservative group of people who are much closer to each other than most of us are with our families. Remember, we have, you know, a 29 year old, a 22 year old, and I think a 24 year old who are all still living and working together. They spent their entire lives on this farm. I have a feeling that Mark is very much the head of this household and that his kids and his wife have always looked to him as the person who knows what to do. You know, I imagined him, I've never seen this show, but I imagine him as like the John Dutton of this group. Right, like from Yellowstone. He is the patriarch and you listen to him and when he says there's a problem, you believe it. And I think he starts having this paranoia and his wife is very easily taken in to it. And now you have both people who are convinced that this is going on. And then you have the two young ladies who are also living on that farm who are also wrapped into it. And the one person who isn't is the other male in the group. The other sort of who you'd imagine if it is sort of a conservative, close knit family, is probably more independent than the two girls. He is the only one who seems to be able to step back from this and say, I don't know what's going on with y'all, but I'm going to go along just to make sure you're okay.
- [54:41]
Alice
And here's another thing about this, right when they're seeing these exhibitions of paranoia, the first thing they do is not to contact any family members for help or law enforcement. All the things they do after kind of things get out of hand. They go to the media, they call police, they report their parents missing. They clearly have extended family, including an uncle who is a police officer. Kind of all these other things that you would think if you need help there are other resources you can reach out to. They don't do that. It's all very insular. This makes a lot of sense if you are a very close knit family. So they're looking to each other and no one else is brought into this because it doesn't appear that like a neighbor is called. It's like, hi, something weird is going on, or hey, uncle who's a police officer. Do you know what's going on here? Mom and dad have been acting a little paranoid. They all basically buy in. And especially when you're on a farm, I can imagine why you'd want to leave with the rest of the family. A farm takes a lot of work. In fact, it takes a whole family and probably other hired help. If everyone is leaving but you, you literally can't keep that farm running all by yourself. There are usually duties are split up. It's an all day, you know, sun up to sundown sort of situation. Like, well, if you're all abandoning it, like, what is the point of me staying here? Because the farm's not going to thrive without you guys. Are we just like abandoning this? Is this our next plan? We're all going together. So I can imagine kind of the very isolated feeling of not just this is my family, but the farm is part of my life and My family as well. I can't be the only one to keep the farm running. So I guess we're all going together. I think that's really interesting that no outside help is asked for until kind of things just scatter quite literally to the wind.
- [56:21]
Brett
And I think this case is important and I mean, it's fascinating case and it's, it's a wild case and it's one of those where you can kind of have a little bit of fun with it because nobody gets hurt, nobody dies. They don't seem to have had really even any other than embarrassment, any sort of long term effect of this. They sort of just went back to their lives. But I think it is important for those of us in true crime because imagine if something had happened, imagine if they had never been found or if they had been murdered or you just found their van and they're all dead around it, right? What would people do? The assumption would be something happened, you know, some great conspiracy or some violence must have happened. And not just this could have been mental illness. And we have seen this in so many of the cases we've looked at. From the very first one we looked at Elisa Lam to the Jameson family, who's a similar case, right. They have sort of this mental illness, they pack up their truck, they drive off into the mountains, their bodies are found in the mountains a few months later. And everyone just assumes there must have been some sort of violence here. Like they wouldn't have just gone up there to die, but if these people had gone to a different place, if they had driven 500 miles west instead of north, they had gone off into the outback, they probably would have died there, would have ran out of gas in the middle of the outback and they would have died. And you would have seen something like that happen. And I think it's always important when you have what appear to be hallmarks of mental illness to consider that and consider it seriously. Ray Rivera case we covered very early on of a man who unfortunately had a serious mental break and ends up jumping off a building. And you have people to this day who think he was dropped out of a helicopter, he was hit by a car, and then dropped through the roof of this building. And then somebody went down to the roof because he fell from very high up and then through a lower roof and put his cell phone next to the hole. I mean, people actually believe that's what happened. When in fact the simplest answer is the scariest answer. Far more frightening, frankly, than a killer that in his own mind his mind became the enemy, and that's what caused it to happen. And you see that with this family, this was purely within their own minds. There was no monster. It was just their own minds betraying them and sending them on this trip.
- [58:47]
Alice
And so kind of in that vein, though, I know earlier you said they. The family kind of owes an explanation. I don't know. I think if this was. And it really does feel like this had to do with mental illness. We know at least two of the family members were hospitalized for psychiatric help. I can see how confusing and scary this is. And mental illness typically doesn't show up and leave right away. Usually it is a lifelong process of figuring out what happened. And if that is the journey they're on, I hope them the best. But also, I do think you're so right, Brett, that it can be such a good reminder that when we see bizarre, bizarre cases, the man watching the super bowl and just leaves with a sandwich and ends up, you know, across the country, dead on the side of the road. I don't know what happened in that case, but, you know, we are drawn to these cases because they are bizarre, because they seem to defy all sense. And we think there is a boogey monster. Oftentimes there are. Serial killers are real, but so much more often the person next to you may be just having a really, really hard time. And the good thing about this case is this family was having a really, really hard time. And I think they met angels all along the way who helped them all get home, and they get to be home. They didn't end up like a lot of the cases that we just mentioned. They live to tell about it, and hopefully those who are close to them know and are helping them through whatever it is. And also another good reminder, true crime and mental health really do go hand in hand in so many of our cases. We've talked about this in the cases we prosecute, at least in the United States, we don't have a really good defining line between, you know, criminal law and mental health help. Often they are intertwined. So one thing that may have prevented this particular episode of a week is if there was external help earlier than later, you know, at least it came later, and it saved everyone, and everyone is okay in terms of health. But we've said this before, like in the Elisa Lam case, and we've said this so often, but be on the lookout for each other. We are, you know, each other's greatest resource and also protectors. I just want to go, like, hug that man who found Rihanna in the catatonic state. Thanks for not kidnapping her and murdering her. Thanks for getting her help. Thanks for not dumping her on the side of the road where someone else could have run over her or done something terrible to her. Those are all, you know, scary situations to be in. But at least I think this case has a happy ending. And we don't always get to say this in these types of cases.
- [61:26]
Brett
It's nice to see a case where somebody ran into the right person instead of the wrong person, because it seems like they so often run to the wrong person, and this time, the right person found them. Well, look, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this case. Shoot us an email. Prosecutors pod gmail.com and prosecutors pod for all your social media people in the gallery will be discussing this. Join us there on Facebook. Let us know what you think. If you would like to watch us record these episodes, you can join Patreon. Even if you don't want to watch us record them, you can still get them early and ad free for as little as $3 a month. Alice, do you have time to answer any questions tonight?
- [62:02]
Alice
I might not, because I think I have two sick kids.
- [62:05]
Brett
Oh, that's okay.
- [62:06]
Alice
Sorry.
- [62:07]
Brett
Fine. That's fine. We'll do one next week.
- [62:09]
Alice
I'll make it up to you guys.
- [62:10]
Brett
Family. Family comes first.
- [62:12]
Alice
I'll make it up by doing West Memphis three by myself next time.
- [62:15]
Brett
There you go. Exactly. Alice is going to do the entire case next time. So y'all make sure you log on. Tune in for that. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're gonna let Alice get back to her children, her lovely children. Nurse them back to health. But we will be back next week with a new case. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [62:41]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [62:42]
Brett
And we are the prosecutor.
- [63:04]
Alice
Are you just trying to troll people and think they're talking? We're talking about the Trump family.
- [63:12]
Brett
Hey, I'm going live, so no more political comments.
- [63:15]
Alice
I never.
- [63:16]
Brett
Secret embezzlement schemes.
- [63:18]
Alice
Never. But, yeah, it's been one of those days. Sorry, guys. We were. We were gossiping.
- [63:26]
Brett
Hello, everyone.
- [63:27]
Alice
Gossiping about. Not true crime related. Well, actually true crime related.
- [63:33]
Brett
It's true.
- [63:34]
Alice
Sorry, sorry. I was telling them that. Do your kids like is this. I know your kids may not as much, but you know, my kids are like, really into lovey. Like, like their whole life surrounds their loving.
- [63:46]
Brett
Not as much as yours.
- [63:47]
Alice
No, no, my kids. Yeah, exactly. And the reason I'm late is because we couldn't find number two Squanto's lovey. And he is attached to his lovey. It is his, like, extension. And we looked in the entire house. You know what it was? It was on my podcast microphone. He came in here and, like, dropped it on here. So that's why.
- [64:39]
Brett
I mean, why not? Let's just go. We'll just do a marathon.
- [64:42]
Alice
I brought water. I have an energy bar. I think we can do it.
- [64:46]
Brett
Okay, well, let's go.
- [64:47]
Alice
Okay, let's go do it. Episode one. Let's go.
- [64:49]
Brett
Episode one. Anyways. Okay, let's see. All right. You ready? For serious?
- [64:58]
Alice
For serious?
- [64:59]
Brett
You're the one who sa.